BrewFest & The Legacy - (MedBoard: Joint Base Lewis-McChord) Days 35 & 36

A sample picture of the new car we purchased

We took my father-in-law's car that we have been using in for an oil change early Saturday morning. One thing I love about Peninsula Subaru's service is that if you purchase a car (new or used) from them, you get free oil changes for life. As we were waiting we wondered around the showroom. We need another car because my wife and I will no longer be working in the same area anymore. Since we've been dating, we've either worked at the same company or have worked very close to each other, so a second car was never needed. We planned on looking around Subaru and my wife wanted to test drive some cars from other lots on Sunday. As it turned out we ended up test driving a new Subaru Legacy and loved it. I love Subarus because of the way they handle in the bad weather we have here in the pacific northwest each winter. We had been looking at an Outback, but decided on the Legacy after giving it a test drive. I finally have a car with Bluetooth, so I can answer my phone hands-free…it's been a long time coming. So we go in for an oil change and leave with a new car…lol.

We then headed to downtown Bremerton and attended the 3rd annual BrewFest. We had attended the first one while I was on leave from Korea, but missed the second one. It was a lot of fun! We met up with a number of friends and tried samples of the various local breweries goods. Some beers were good and some were downright awful! After that we headed to a local brewery and restaurant close by called "Der Blokken". The food was good and the company was good. All in all it was a great weekend. I found the more I drank, the less pain I had in my head…by the end of the day I was feeling no pain at all. I wonder if I can get a prescription for this??

Weekend Wrap-Up (Cannstatter Volksfest) - (Germany) Day 291 & 292

Inside one of the "tents" at the Stuttgart BeerFest. One big

party where everyone has a great time.

Saturday: We woke up and got ready for the day, then headed to the park and ride off post to catch our bus for the "Cannstatter Volksfest". This fest is also known as the "Stuttgart BeerFest" and I keep hearing that it's better than Oktoberfest, so I had to check it out. The local MWR facility scheduled a trip, so we signed up and headed out. One of the great things about attending this event via a bus trip is that we don't have to worry about driving, parking, or drinking and trying to drive home. Just get on the bus, sit back and relax until we arrive.

The bus ride was a bit over an hour. We headed into the fest and it turned out to be similar in size to the Oktoberfest in Munich. It was huge, with several beer halls, rides, games, and vendors. We went through one of the beer halls first just to check it out. We then decided to go on some rides before we drank anything. Thankfully it didn't rain on us like Oktoberfest. We went on several rides and then headed back to the beer halls, but by this time they were packed. It's crazy how difficult it can be to actually get a beer at a beer festival. We decided to head to one of the beer gardens outside. We had some chicken and beer, then did some more walking around.

It's true that the festival was not as packed as Oktoberfest, but there were still plenty of people everywhere! From what I could tell, you would have to arrive early and get in a tent (beer hall) and stay if you wanted to drink in there. There is live bands, everyone seems to be standing on the tables drinking. It looked like a fun time, but we did indeed have fun just checking everything out. Our bus left at 2100, which turned out to be about the perfect time. Everyone had plenty of time to experience the festivities, and nobody got too drunk to make it back. There was some sort of incident with the German police and some of our passengers, but the bus driver was able to get them all back to the bus before we left…not sure what went on there.

Sunday: Not much to write about here…we slept in, cleaned house, did laundry and watched some TV shows. Not too exciting, but it was a nice relaxing day before I head back to work tomorrow. I would start counting down the days until next weekend, but I have staff duty again next Saturday, so I will have no weekend….Grrrrr.

Check out pictures of the BeerFest in the slideshow below or my flickr album:

Created with flickr slideshow.

Labor Day Weekend (AIT - Fort Gordon) Days 79 - 82

BeerFest!...lots of people...lots of beer...and even a live band

Busy having fun away from the base this 4-day weekend...here is a summary of the events....

Friday: Woke up for a 7AM formation. This formation was for anyone who was leaving on pass and we formed up in civilian clothes. It just didn’t seem right. We marched over to Charlie company to sign out. The process only took a few minutes once we arrived, which was nice. We were free for the 4-day before 8AM in the morning! At the moment we didn’t have anywhere that we could go, so PFC Metal and I ate breakfast at the DFAC and waited for his wife to come pick us up. They were nice enough to drop me at my hotel so I didn’t have to take a cab. I checked in and waited for my wife to arrive. It was so awesome to see her. We just hung out in the hotel all night (hotel pt).

Saturday: Unfortunately my wife’s luggage didn’t arrive at the airport with her. She was bringing me a lot of my civilian clothes as well, so this kind of sucked for both of us. The airline told us they would deliver it either last night light or this morning. They called this morning and said they changed their mind and we could either come pick it up or they can FedEx it. Needless to say we were a little pissed off. We actually had some plans today and this is going to throw us behind quite a bit. We drove to the Atlanta airport and picked up the luggage, then back to the hotel to change. We then drove to Savannah to attend a BeerFest with PFC Metal and his wife (Check out their website here). They had already been there for a while by the time we arrived, but there was still plenty of time for us to taste all the beers that were there. It was pretty fun, there were a lot of good beers...as well as a few that were not so good.

Sunday: Had Starbucks for the first time in a long time and pretty much just relaxed all day. It was very nice....even spent a little time in the hotel hot tub.

Monday: Today was a bit emotional knowing that it was our last day together. It’s times like this that make me question if joining was the right thing to do or not. I hate being away from my family. I am so looking forward to getting out of AIT and getting stationed somewhere, so when I get off duty I can go home to my wife. Just a couple more months...just a couple more months. My wife came to our recall formation and sat with PFC Metal’s wife waiting for our formation to finish. We have to have a sergeant take accountability and check all of our shaves and haircuts. We then took off back to the hotel to hang out until bed check at 21:30 when I had to be back in my room.

Overheard Quote: “Baby...it smells like rotten milk” (My wife in the car on the way back from BeerFest....yes I had a little gas)

Me on the left and PFC Metal on the right doing a little beer tasting.

Me in front of the doors to BeerFest...great times are had through these doors!